Queen Catrina
by merl
Summary: Catrina on the throne of Camelot. Uther, Arthur and Merlin enchanted, Gaius imprisoned and Gwen has to solve that problem
1. Chapter 1

The following story is an alternative storyline for "Beauty and the Beast, Part2". Means, it contains spoilers for both episodes.

**Queen Catrina**

**Part 1:**

Slowly Gwen walked down the streets of Camelot and veered toward the main building. Day by day it became harder to go there, to force herself to go there. She would rather turn around, pack her things and leave as so many others already had done.

They had left a morbid silence, empty houses, empty streets, dust and dirt. More than half of the people had fled the strange events of the last months, had run away as quickly as possible. But neither because of fear for the strange creatures appearing every now and then, nor because of the rumours of kings of adjacent kingdoms arming to overrun Camelot. No, they had left due to the shame sitting on their throne.

"Gwen", someone whispered next to her and she turned around. An old friend of her father's stood there, looking around anxiously as if he were afraid of being traced.

"Go as long as you still can", he advised her silently while gesturing at his wife to pack faster. "They will destroy Camelot if not this monster of a queen will do it herself."

Gwen just nodded, blushed and lowered her sight.

"I just can't", she answered and shrugged, compressing her lips and looking at the man in search of help. He watched her with a face marked by sorrow, went to his wife and helped her to pack.

Gwen looked at them a second longer, then turned around sadly and went on.

She would have loved to leave but she could not. Leaving would mean abandoning her friends but she had to help them. Something just was wrong. Under normal conditions Arthur would never have allowed the events of the last months. Merlin would never have accepted Gaius' imprisonment and Uther would never have tolerated magical creatures overrunning Camelot as they did now. But still they did all of that.

Everyone but the inhabitants laughed about Camelot and its queen.

Queen Catrina.

For a long time she had hidden her true form with a spell, had sneaked into Uther's heart, had enchanted him, married him. By the time she revealed her true form it had seemed as if Arthur wanted to do something about it. But suddenly, from one day to the other, he had changed. He now seemed to adore his stepmother, did everything she commanded him, even looking after those disgusting little things Catrina called 'children'.

Merlin did not behave as usual either. He was only a servant, a slave. Nothing else. He did his job without moaning or complaining. He just did what he was ordered to do.

But the strangest thing was that they all wore similar necklaces.

Gwen just knew that those necklaces had something to do with all of this. Catrina must have enchanted Uther, Arthur and Merlin. Because it was only them who did not realize what everyone else could see: Camelot's throne was taken by a troll.

There was chaos in the throne room.

The disgusting little things Catrina called her children ran around in childish excitement, crashed into each other with laughter, rolled around with each other and created as much chaos and destruction as possible. Long ago Gwen had wondered how the castle still could be furnished with all this vandalism.

Just one of the beasts usually sat in a corner quietly and got bullied by its silblings because it looked a little bit more like a human than a troll. From its facial features one surely could tell that it was Uther's son.

Another shiver of disgusted horror ran down Gwen's spine.

"Ah, Gwen", something muttered from the shadows. "Are you here to help my son-in-law?"

Dressed in completely dirty clothes Catrina sat at the table and ate munching the still steaming dung placed on a bed of maggots. Farting, burping and laughing she wobbled from left to right whenever her beloved children destroyed something.

Gwen clenched her teeth-

„I just wanted to change the flowers, Milady", she mumbled as friendly as she possibly could.

"Flowers?", Catrina burped in disgust. "Not tasty." Then she continued munching, took one of the maggots, looked at it quite excited and ate it with pleasure.

Nauseated the maidservant turned around to leave the room as all of a sudden two little creatures ran towards her, reaching out for her and clenching their hands to fists over and over again. Anxiously Gwen looked around not knowing how to escape or where to find help, she stood still as a stature, was about to close her eyes in contemplation of death as suddenly Arthur jumped in, put himself in front of her for protection and brutally kicked away the beasts.

Catrina cried out as loud as short and burst into a troll-like guffaw similar to a seizure which made her fall down to the floor, reaching it farting and rolling there in laughter.

Both Gwen and Arthur watched her but the Gwenn shook her head, turned around to the prince and said in relief: "Thank you." Gently she touched his arm but he did not react at all. He just stared at the queen with widened eyes, suddenly cringed and then he ran towards her, helping her up.

"Did you hurt yourself, stepmother?", he asked caring.

Catrina looked at him with her big watery eyes, farted and jumped up and down in excitement before sitting down again.

"Isn't he a good boy?", she asked Gwen. "Be nice and watch my babies, Arthur. Who would believe that they'll be kings and queens once …"

Gwen could not believe it.

Those disgusting beasts (and she could not tell which ones were girls and which boys) should rule over lands? The dreamy look in Catrina's eyes showed that the queen already had planned the future of her children. The only question was: Who voluntarily would marry a creature which was a mixture between human and troll?

Gwen really did not like to go on thinking about this and kept still. She once dared to speak up to the queen. Arthur had thrown her into the dungeons and she had to be there for three days. Only for the queen's mercy had he let her out.

The red amulet around his neck lit up over and over again and Arthur still did what Catrina told him to do.

Gwen could not take this anymore.

Quickly she turned around, held on tight to the flowers and ran out of the room.

Drenched in tears she ran down the corridors. Long ago she had dropped the flowers, had thrown them away. There was just one person she could go to now. Morgana.  
Gwen turned around the corner and suddenly collided with someone. At first she could only see dirty clothes flying through the air, then Merlin in the middle of this bunch of crud and finally the clothes falling down, half to the ground, half on Merlin while the dirt dizzeled after.  
The maidservant stared at Merlin and he stared back.  
Just as she wanted to say something she saw his amulet flashing up.  
„They were freshly wallowed in mud!" he shouted angrily, took up one dress and noticed, that half of its dirt had fallen off. "Now I have to do that again!"  
Quickly he got down and collected the clothes with rapid agitation. Gwen forced herself to stop crying, kneeled next to him, touched his shoulder and told him softly: "They still are quite dirty."  
Inflamed with rage Merlin slapped her hand away.  
„You have no idea! You are as stupid as our wise queen tells us all the time", he snubbed her without looking at her. While he went on collecting the clothes he mumbled: "Quite dirty, tz … there has to be clot, hay, bugs have to be teeming in the wrinkles and the right fragrance is that hard to find. Easy for her to say, this maidservant …".  
As soon as he had picked up everything he jumped up and ran back the direction he had come from.  
Shocked Gwen remained where she was.  
So far she had been forced to tolerate more than ever before. Bad times, hunger, misery, losses. Everything she had endured. But seeing what was done to her friends was more than she was able to bear.

The guards in front of Morgana's door did not dare to look at Gwen. They were too ashamed for staying around and serving Catrina by watching Morgana.

But Gwen knew that the guards did not pay as much attention to their job as Catrina would have liked it. When the Queen was not around Morgana was allowed to leave the room for a short while.

Gwen smiled encouraging, knocked the door gently, waited a few seconds and then went inside. Morgana sat in front of her mirror, looking at herself thoughtfully.

As Gwen closed the door Morgana turned around and Gwen grew scared. Morgana's face was so tense, pale. Her eyes dark and tired, her mouth narrowed.

"What has happened?", Gwen asked and stepped towards Morgana.

"She finally wants to get rid of me for good", Morgana whispered weakly and turned back to the mirror. "I shall get married. The day after tomorrow."

"What?", Gwen asked in disbelief, went over to her mistress and put a hand on her shoulder. "When was this decided? And to whom will you get married?"

Morgana put her hand on her maidservant's.

"I don't know. Some prince from a kingdom far away. I just found out this morning. Arthur told me", she explained bitterly. "Oh, Gwen", she then sighed. "We have to do something about this. Arthur, Uther and Merlin are not behaving normally. It has to be those amulets. Catrina must have bewitched them."

Gwen sat down.

"I know", she said eagerly. "I've been thinking the same. Maybe all one has to do is destroy those amulets and everything goes back to normal."

"Nothing ever will be normal again", Morgana flared up. "Uther has made a mockery of himself. Even more when those disgusting little monsters started crawling on his lap. Nobody will forget this that quickly."

Gwen put more pressure on Morgana's shoulder to calm the Lady down, to give her strength.

"We've been through other worse things. By the time Uther is himself again he will rule with a firm hand. Camelot will not be harmed. We just have to take this into our own hands." Gwen pondered.

"But how?" her Mistress asked hopelessly. "What can we possibly do? I am trapped in this room and if you tried to revolt, Catrina would make Arthur come after you."

"Will the wedding take place in Camelot?" Gwen suddenly asked silently.

"Yes," Morgana answered not knowing what her maidservant was up to. "But how can we use that?"

"Everyone will be busy preparing for the wedding. Maybe Catrina will be distracted from us. And maybe Gaius can help us", Gwen shared her thoughts.

"Gaius?" Morgana laughed, but became silent very fast and depressed. "First you would have to get him out of the dungeons. And even if you can do that, he will be very weak. How could he help us?"

"Maybe he knows what kind of amulets those are. How to destroy them", Gwen was scheming already.

Slowly some hope became visible on Morgana's face. Carefully she turned around to Gwen, looked her maidservant straight into the eyes.

"Do you really think we can do that?", she asked almost begging. Gwen gave her a resolute look.

"Yes" ,she said confident, brave and full of anticipation to score off the troll. "You just have to try everything to keep the people as busy as possible."

Morgana laughed out loud. "Believe me", she said giggling. „That is something I am good at."

Gwen got up to leave. Once again she turned around to Morgana and this time it was Morgana giving Gwen an encouraging nod. Along with dozens of plans in her head Gwen went on her way home.

She kept thinking on her way.

She would have to talk to Gaius first to describe the amulet to him. Then she would have to bribe the guards, if that was necessary at all. She either had to get Gaius out of the dungeons without anybody seeing it or she would have to get his books to him.

After that she would have to free Merlin from the spell, because he was the one who could get close enough to Arthur to help him. Then it would be Uther's turn. And then the troll.

Gwen passed by the throne room. Still the little beasts were up to mischief. Hitting Arthur's fibular, running around wildly, crawling up everything they could find, farting and burping in a volume you would not expect from such a little, ugly body.

Merlin stood next to Catrina, showing her the dirty clothes and the queen was excited about every stain she saw. So about everything.

This time it wasn't disgust floating through Gwen. It was anticipation. Anticipation for ending this. Catrina's days as queen were numbered.

"She won't survive the next wedding", the maidservant thought happily.

She got down to work.

Finishing part 2 will take a bit


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

"You want to do what?"

Gaius' voice was pretty low and nearly inaudible. He was shaking all over, his face was pale and he seemed so broken-down. He was obviously ill.

Carefully Gwen fed him the soup she had brought for him. Gaius was too weak to even hold the spoon himself.

"We have to do something", she said. "These events must be connected to the amulets, somehow. There is no other explanation. Things have become worse, Gaius."

He looked up in surprise.

"How can this possibly become worse?", he asked before Gwen gave him another bit of soup.

"She has children now", she answered dryly.

Gaius choked on the soup and spat nearly all of it out. Raising one eyebrow he stared at the maidservant with his mouth open in shocked surprise.

"Children?", he asked doubtfully, maybe hoping he had heard wrong. "With Uth…"

"Please", Gwen interrupted him with a sound of disgust in her voice. "I so don't want to think about that."

"That's truly a quite strange thought", the old man pondered. "I really didn't know that trolls and humans possibly could…"

"Gaius!", Gwen shouted and put away the soup. "It's bad enough seeing those creatures every day. They are here now but there is no need to think about how they were … well, created."

A slight grin became visible on Gaius' face. But he granted Gwen the favour and changed the topic: "So, what plan do you have?"

Relieved to speak about something else Gwen started to explain:

"Firstly we have to find out what kind of amulets they are and how they can be destroyed. Then we have to help Merlin who is the only one who can come close enough to Arthur. Arthur then will free Uther from the spell. And finally we will all cut off the heads of those disgusting, ugly, unbearable throne-besieging monsters." Gwen had talked herself into rage and she would not have stopped if Gaius had not interrupted her: "And how do you suppose I research these amulets?"

"The guards will help", Gwen answered. "They want to get rid of Catrina, too. They will either take you to your chambers or they will bring your books here. But we have to hurry."

"Why?", Gaius went on asking, attentively and with new hope.

"Morgana is getting married in two days", Gwen told him quickly and, when she noticed Gaius' shocked look, added: "Don't worry, we won't let that happen. Everything will be prepared."

"You seem to be quite certain", Gaius said in a fatherly fashion and smiled proudly. When Gwen nodded he went on: "I have to be in my chambers. I have no idea where to find the necessary information and there I will have everything I might have to use. Do you really have trust in the guards?"

"Yes, I do. They were that relieved when I asked for their support." Gwen helped Gaius up. And while both of them went to the guards to give them advice she told him what the amulets looked like. Their ways parted, but not for much longer anymore.

The guards had told Gwen that Gaius had got to his chambers safely. Although there had been a little incident when suddenly the queen had turned up. But fortunately two of the little monsters had found out how much fun it was to throw another sibling out of the window. And when Catrina had seen this, her feelings as a mother had become that strong that she just had to help with the throwing.

As the maidservant was told, a broken nose, a slightly deformed head and stuck out arms just made the creatures more beautiful.

Gwen also received reports that Morgana managed to keep everybody busy. The queen was so eager to get rid of the king's ward that her every wish was to be granted. And Morgana was able to think of the most bizarre things: special flowers from the other end of the forest, but in a specific colour so that they matched to a dress that still had to be sewn (which was not easy due to necessary wrinkles, unnecessary wrinkles, short haze, then long haze, maybe no haze and much more). Next to this plans for the dinner had to be made and the kind of decoration had to be discussed.

Gwen was proud that everything going according to plan.

She herself spent all day helping Gaius with the search for a solution.

Every single book lay on the floor, open at special pages that could contain useful information.

Gaius had already found out that the magic of the amulets had been strengthened by the blood of the troll. But they still had no idea about how to break the spell.

They discussed every possibility they could think of: ointments, potions, objects, poisons, plants, blood of the bewitched but they could not find anything promising.

Time was running out. The bridegroom was due to arrive the next day and the wedding would take place at noon.

Gaius' hands shook more and more from one hour to another and the later the day the more he shivered in anxiety.

He was tired, exhausted, was aware of the fact that it was up to him now. He had to find a solution.

Gwen was worried about him. Totally stubborn he read his books over and over again, afraid to miss information. The maidservant brought him everything he needed.

As she brought him a flask with a greenish liquid in it, she stumbled over one of the books, nearly fell and dropped the flask. It cracked into thousand tiny broken fragments.

"Gaius?", she asked thoughtfully while looking at the broken glass.

"Hm?", he answered while flipping the pages of the book about poisons.

"Can't we just break the amulets?", she said. "Just make them burst into tiny little fragments?"

Gaius looked up in surprise, glimpsed at the broken flask and turned to Gwen.

Closing the book abruptly, one eyebrow lifted he looked slightly offended as he said: "That might be possible."

Camelot looked stunningly beautiful for the wedding that would never take place. Everyone but those who knew Gwen's plan showed confusion. They did not know what to think about it. On the one hand they should be happy for Morgana because it was her wedding day. But on the other hand they had no idea about who the bridegroom was going to be. Everyone was aware of the fact that Morgana would finally be able to escape her imprisonment in Camelot.

The bride sat nervously in her room, getting her hair done with the help of her maidservant.

"Is everything prepared?", Morgana asked anxiously with a shivering voice.

"Everything's fine", Gwen calmed her down. "This will be the best day of the last months."

"Let's hope so", a smacking voice sounded from the door.

Catrina came in, wearing something that was supposed to be her best dress. Under several layers of dirt, muck and dung a tiny little bit of blue cloth was still visible. Gwen asked herself why she and Morgana did not smell the arrival of the queen.

"Are you looking forward to your day, child?", the queen asked and sat down on the bed while farting as loud as possible.

The king's ward looked at Gwen as though pleading for her life and the maidservant immediately knew that she had to find a way to get rid of those bedcovers as soon as possible. Nobody would ever be able to use them again.

"Of course", Morgana finally said hesitantly. "Although it would be really nice to know who my husband is going to be."

"You will get to know, you will", Catrina burped. "When you are at the altar."

Saying this she stood up und went out of the room, leaving a trace of noticeable, disgusting odour.

"I'll be that happy when we finally got rid of her", Morgana sighed and Gwen just nodded.

Morgana looked amazing in her closely fitted, bright dress with the long transparent haze.

Gwen was right behind her making sure that nobody stepped on the cloth. Besides she hoped she could get near enough to Merlin to destroy his amulet.

He stood next to Arthur at the altar. And next to them there was an unbelievably fat man.

Gwen noticed that Morgana clenched a bit. But the lady was brave enough to hold her head up. They arrived at the altar and had no other choice than to take a closer look.

His face seemed to be swollen and there was no throat to see. In his beard there were the remnants of his breakfast and hopefully not of the last dinner. His hair looked greasy and was glued to his forehead by his sweat.

He seemed to be as tall as wide, a sweat-moistened, stinky ball.

Morgana became as pale as a ghost and Gwen could do nothing more than try to cheer the lady up with a brave smile.

Everything would turn out well.

Morgana opened her mouth a bit so that she did not have to breathe through her nose and stood next to her bridegroom who seemed to be eager to get this done.

Gwen dropped the dress and haze and went over to Merlin holding a little spiky stone in her hand.

The ceremony began.

All the time the farts and burps of the lot of trolls disturbed the boring litany of the priest. Gwen was eager to find the right position to free Merlin.

"Merlin?", she whispered when she was finally satisfied with her position and was lucky.

He looked at her, turned around a bit and Gwen used this short moment to beat the amulet with the stone as hard as possible without hurting Merlin. It broke.

Merlin's eyes widened and he looked around confused.

"What …?", he asked and lifted one hand to his temple.

"Psssst", Gwen warned him, took his hand and explained quickly what was going on. Shocked and disgusted he stared at the royal family. The maidservant also told him about her plan and he nodded. He understood.

Arthur was not far away. Merlin took the stone, took two steps to his right and was right next to the prince.

Gwen did not see how Merlin destroyed Arthur's amulet but he must have done it quite quickly and silently. The prince's eyes widened as he suddenly noticed where he was. Then he looked at Morgana in shock who smiled back in relief. And all of a sudden it was pretty obvious that Arthur had a lot of difficulty holding back a probably seizure-like laughter.

Merlin had to hit him in his ribs several times before the prince had pulled himself together again and the servant was able to explain everything to him. Arthur listened attentively and nodded now and then. Then he looked up again, watched the queen and laid one hand on his sword. Finally Merlin turned around.

Gwen could just see that Merlin's face had a determined look and that there was a trace of anger on the prince's face.

Slowly he moved towards Uther. Now it would get difficult because Catrina was sitting next to the king and seemed to notice that something was going on. Her farting frequency increased rapidly.

Nervously she wobbled from one side to the other, looked around and saw that the spell was broken.

"I – ummm …", she suddenly said, "… have to go."

This being said she jumped up, bowled her children away to move faster and waddled in direction of the door. Arthur followed her with long, aggressive steps and pure hatred on his face. On his way he pulled his sword.

"Catrina, darling?", Uther's voice sounded and was carried through the whole church. "Where is my lovely queen?"

He stood up, went after his son, saw his sword and from the king's facial expression one could tell that he noticed what Arthur was up to.

"Never", the king shouted, pulled his own sword, jumped forward and stood in front of the troll to protect her.

"Father", Arthur fizzled. "You're under a spell. She's a troll."

Sullen the king stared at his son, held his sword in both hands and challenged the prince who sighed and suddenly struck.

They fought grimly. Gwen looked from one to the other and knew that this would not end well. As long as Uther was under Catrina's spell he would do everything to protect her and Arthur never would be able to beat his father. She had to do something.

She turned around and looked at Merlin and Morgana who both stood there perplexed. Suddenly Morgana took the fat ball's sword, ran over to Catrina, lifted the sword and right in the moment Catrina noticed this Morgana pierced the troll's body.

Catrina went down in shock, stared at Morgana, at the sword, at Uther and everyone else.

"Whoops", she finally said, farted a last time and fell to the ground. She was dead.

And Uther's amulet burst.

For several weeks the story of the troll was told over and over again. Uther was the target of everybody's mockery. He stayed in the castle and nobody but Gaius was allowed to go to him.

Catrina's children had already committed suicide by testing how sharp a sword actually is on each other. Nobody had tried to stop them. Just one of the little creatures was missing. The one who looked more human than the others.

Gwen heard that a strange looking child was found by some monks far away. She did not tell anyone.

Arthur kept on telling the story of the wedding and of what could have come out of this. For Gwen this was the needed excuse to tell him over and over again what he had to face while looking after the little creatures. This made him stopping his laughter about Morgana immediately.

Everyone who had fled the events moved back to their homes. And the story of the maidservant of had saved a whole kingdom was told everywhere for quite a long time.


End file.
